UPDATED: FISC Order In View Of OIG FISA Report Findings
Today the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) issued a rare public order in response to OIG's FISA report which detailed FBI bad behavior in submitting FISA applications with regard to Carter Page. The actual title of the FISC order is:
IN RE ACCURACY CONCERNS REGARDING FBI MATTERS SUBMITTED TO THE FISC
The order begins with a brief explanation of FISC procedures, as established by FISA. Follow the link if you get off on that kind of stuff.
Likely the most interesting aspect of the order comes in the concluding paragraphs, in which the FISC addresses the specific topic of disgraced FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith's bad, i.e., criminal, behavior. The FISC, in essence, states that any application that Clinesmith worked on must now be regarded as suspect and notes that on December 5, 2019, the FISC ordered the FBI to "provide certain information" regarding applications handled by Clinesmith. The FISC intends to publish that December 5 order and gives the FBI until December 20 to submit suggested redactions--while noting that
In view of the information released to the public in the OIG Report, the Court expects that such review will entail minimal if any redactions.
Below are the concluding paragraphs that also contains the expected highminded language about the FBI doing things to make sure this never happens again and telling the FISC what those things are. IMO, the relevant Congressional committees should invite CJ John Roberts to offer any views he may have on the subject of FISA generally and the FISC in particular. Since the FISC is a creation of Congress it's hard to see what Roberts could actually do with this mess--short of declaring the FISC unconstitutional and refusing to appoint judges to participate in it.
In addition, while the fourth electronic surveillance application for Mr. Page was being prepared, an attorney in the FBI's Office of General Counsel (OGC) [Kevin Clinesmith] engaged in conduct that apparently was intended to mislead the FBI agent who ultimately swore to the facts in that application about whether Mr. Page had been a source of another government agency. See id. at 252-56. The information about the OGC attorney's conduct in the OIG report is consistent with classified submissions made to the FISC by the government on October 25, 2019, and November 27, 2019. Because the conduct of the OGC attorney [Kevin Clinesmith] gave rise to serious concerns about the accuracy and completeness of the information provided to the FISC in any matter in which the OGC attorney was involved, the Court ordered the government on December 5, 2019, to, among other things, provide certain information addressing those concerns.
The FBI's handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the OIG report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above. The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable. The FISC expects the government to provide complete and accurate information in every filing with the Court. Without it, the FISC cannot properly ensure that the government conducts electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes only when there is a sufficient factual basis.
THEREFORE, the Court ORDERS that the government shall, no later than January 10, 2020, inform the Court in a sworn written submission of what it has done, and plans to do, to ensure that the statement of facts in each FBI application accurately and completely reflects information possessed by the FBI that is material to any issue presented by the application. In the event that the FBI at the time of that submission is not yet able to perform any of the planned steps described in the submission, it shall also include (a) a proposed timetable for implementing such measures and (b) an explanation of why, in the government's view, the information in FBI applications submitted in the interim should be regarded as reliable.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, pursuant to FISC Rule of Procedure 62(a), that the government shall, no later than December 20, 2019, complete a declassification review of the above-referenced order of December 5, 2019, in anticipation of the FISC's publishing that order. In view of the information released to the public in the OIG Report, the Court expects that such review will entail minimal if any redactions.
UPDATE 1: Devin Nunes speaks about FISA and the FISC. At about the 1:20 mark the discussion turns to the FISC and at about 3:20 Nunes says they need to "end" the FISC. He then goes on to say "we need a process," but without offering specifics. This is the debate that I referred to last week in FISA: Reform Or Abolish? citing the views of Robert Bork and Angelo Codevilla. I personally doubt that FISA gets abolished, because it protects the Deep State:
UPDATE 2: Did it really take the Horowitz Dossier for the FBI to figure out what happened in 2016? I guess that would have to be Chris Wray's position at this point:
--->REWIND: On Jan. 29, 2018, FBI Dir Chris Wray issued a statement rebutting the Nunes Memo on FISA abuses & warning Trump not to declassify or release it, citing "grave concerns" with inaccuracies & omissions in the memo. Now we know Wray, too, was lyinghttps://t.co/sXrLx3iToD
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) December 18, 2019